Letter: A modest proposal

For a whole lot of people who came before you, it meant more than life itself.

Freedom in this country has been won by hard work, by combat, by sacrifice of lives.

We still have more freedom in our country than almost anywhere on earth.

European countries do not have as much freedom as we do, though it seems that way.

Australia has lost freedom in recent years.

The countries of Asia and Africa have no where near the freedoms we do.

South American countries seem to be filled with socialist basket cases such as Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.

The bedrock of our freedoms is found in the Constitution.

It is called the Bill of Rights.

Those are rights that you have, that the government cannot take away from you without what they call “due process.”

That means the government had better have a really really good reason to remove that right, or any part of that right from you.

You don’t have to have any reason at all, other than that it is your right, to exercise that right. It’s a whole list of “The Government Can’t” take from you or do to you.

I have a proposal.

Why not put one of those 10 amendments in every classroom?

In big letters, so it’s easily read?

Not just in high schools, but middle schools and elementary schools.

If a child doesn’t understand it in first grade, so what?

He’ll have an idea what it says (that is, if first graders can read. They can, can’t they?). What it means will sink in after 12 years (if you can keep a kid in school for 12 years.)

This is, of course, in lieu of the ideal, which would be a semester of the Constitution.

I’d like to see that, but let’s start off with the Bill of Rights.

I would hope that the rule could be written to make sure all of the 10 amendments would be included, else some teacher decide that she doesn’t want that amendment in his (Yes, I mixed the genders in that sentence. So sue me.) classroom and takes it down.

Or replaces it.

I would also hope that the signs would be allowed to stand by themselves, rather than be “explained” by anybody.

Would anyone like to join me in urging the school systems in Pueblo County to adopt such a scheme?